I will be serving the Lord in The Dominican Republic Santo Domingo West Mission from June 2011-2013.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Friday = Missionary Experience

Helllo Familly! oops Hello Family!

Just kidding Mom, it's okay you forgot how to spell my name! haha That made me laugh way hard when I saw that's why I didn't get an e-mail from you guys.

Well the D.R. and the CCM (Centro de Capacitacion Misional) are still awesome!! I'm still loving it here. I am so, so grateful that I had the chance to come here. The more we talk with Pres. Glazier, the more I realize it really is a blessing that we got to come here. The only time Americans get to come here is when there is room, and apparently more times than not, there isn't. So I'm way happy to be here. Overall, the CCM and DR are muy bien.

Well, I don't really know where to start....so I'll start off with the food. My trust and love for the food took a sharp drop last weekend. On Sunday, quite a few elders and sisters started getting sick, and it wasn't too sweet. The baño was my permanent residence for most of Sunday. Sorry for the gross description, but it's what happened. But thanks to my trusty Pepto, I am better, and have faith again in the food. Random fact, today we ate soup with chicken legs in it. First time I have ever seen a whole leg come out of a soup, but hey, there is a first time for everything!

Mom to answer your question, that palm tree I am standing in front of is on the temple grounds. The temple grounds are beautiful!---were beautiful, until this week....The temple is closed for cleaning, and in the mean time they scalped all the grass down to nothing. So it's nice and brown everywhere. We had the opportunity to put all this excess grass into bags for our service this week, see the attached picture. It is still hot here. Not just hot, scalding!!

Last Friday, and every Friday from now on, we get to go on a "missionary experience". Last week we went to the university that is close to the CCM, and we contacted people and tried to share a message with them. Well, the second person we talked to was like, "I'm Atheist and happy." We were like, "uh......" We had kinda expected everyone would be Christian, but nope! Anyway, we just bore testimony that God exists and that he loves all of his children, and then we left. We were able to contact a bunch of people, and actually understand probably about 13.89% of what they said. It was a great experience, nonetheless. I got to try out my Camelback, and I was super glad I had it! One hombre we talked to said he had to hurry and go to class, so we just quickly bore testimony and gave him a folleta, and he ran off. Anyway, later we walked past him and he was reading it, it was pretty cool!

Things with Elder Jensen are still good. We are starting to work together a lot better in our teaching, and because of this the Lord has blessed us with His Spirit to guide us what to say. It's really cool.

Hmmmm time for random little stories and facts for the week. All of our teachers are Dominican. They don't speak much English, so we teach them English, and they teach us Spanish. My favorite thing to do is write 'colonel' on the board and watch them try to pronounce it. It's pretty comico. One of our maestros is Hermano Perez, he is this tiny little guy who speaks the funniest English ever. He always says "what the heck", but it sounds more like what the 'hett'. It makes me bust up every time.

Their laundry machines make your clothes more dirty than when you put them in, except for one that is in Spanish. So I took my dictionary in with me and deciphered it, so now I have clean clothes. Um, when you walk around you realize how polluted it is here. Everyone drives 2-stroke motorcycles and diesels, so it's pretty stinky! But, they have sweet trucks. They are little Toyota hino's that are like Tacoma's but with little diesel engines. I want one.

Dad, I can't believe you stayed at the Hilton for scout camp. I'm so jealous. I would love to see pictures. I'm past the homesick stage, so pictures are good. I can look at them, so keep sending them.

Today we got to go to a museum because the temple is closed That was cool, but in Spanish so it could have been cooler. I saw the U.S. embassy and American soldiers, and that made me feel safe.

Tell Andy Maughan congrats, good luck, and that he will do awesome!

Tell everyone at Bear Lake hi, and that I love them all!

Ash, thanks for the pictures, they were great!

Anyway, I love you all, thanks for the letters, and I hope you have a great week!